this is like some were saying 'hotmail has as many users as google has for all of its products' for gmail.
now look where gmail is and where hotmail is.
Nokia has as many people for smartphone software as Apple does for all products
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Re: Nokia has as many people for smartphone software as Apple does for all products
#12I read in an article that I cannot track down right now that Steve Jobs has gathered some of the world's leading experts in aluminum, process engineering, glass - the creative power of Apple lies in its breadth and astonishing depth.
Re: Nokia has as many people for smartphone software as Apple does for all products
#13No matter what you say about Nokia, I love them. Here is why: - Easy designs - Affordable phones - user replaceable batteries - Cheap and fits in with my upgrade cycles - the N900.
The N900 certainly wasn't cheap. In fact, the fact that I'd have to shell out another few hundred for a replacement smartphone is the only reason I haven't thrown it against a wall. I have it overclocked, and it's still dog slow. :(
Re: Nokia has as many people for smartphone software as Apple does for all products
#14Might be interesting to look at the total salaries instead of just the headcount. I understand Nokia did quite a lot of cheap outsourcing in the last decade.
According to Asymco's data, Nokia also spends 10.2% of their phone revenue on R&D, versus 2.5% for Apple.
Except R+D at nokia means anyone not actually bolting phones together.
Having 4 competing operating systems, each with their own layers of management and their own VPs all fighting each other - counts as R+D spend.
Re: Nokia has as many people for smartphone software as Apple does for all products
#15Re: Nokia has as many people for smartphone software as Apple does for all products
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to Asymco's data, Nokia also spends 10.2% of their phone revenue on R&D, versus 2.5% for Apple.
Except R+D at nokia means anyone not actually bolting phones together. Having 4 competing operating systems, each with their own layers of management and their own VPs all fighting each other - counts as R+D spend.
Four? I see S40, Symbian, and MeeGo.
Or are you counting the touch-based and non-touch-based Symbians separately? There'd be some justice in that.
Re: Nokia has as many people for smartphone software as Apple does for all products
#17Am I the only one that finds Asymco to be transparent and unsubtle pandering?
Nokia's got higher R&D than Apple, but Apple's got higher profits, so Nokia are stupid and Apple are smart.
If Nokia had lower R&D than Apple, then Apple would still have higher profits, so Nokia would still be stupid and Apple smart.
So how is this any different from his other 900 posts pointing out that Apple have high profits? What analysis or insight does it add?
Re: Nokia has as many people for smartphone software as Apple does for all products
#18There's some room for complaining about the "smartphone" classification. Most Symbian-based phones would not qualify as smartphones in the US. I'm on my third, and they're pretty smart, but not having touchscreens really puts them in a separate market segment.
And those phones run Qt, too, which this analysis lumps in with MeeGo. So, if you counted up just the people Nokia has working on touchscreen phones, you might find it about matches the iPhone team.
Which, mind you, is still not a ringing endorsement of Nokia's efficiency. My N86 has some advantages (1) over, say, my wife's Android phone (a Backflip running 2.1), but Android has a lot more room to improve.
(1) Mostly quality of the phone UI, as opposed to computer UI. For example, the N86's voice control works with my headset. On Android, voice dialing requires you pull out the phone and press a button; with Symbian, you can just push the button on the headset. I now consider that essential; if I had to drive without a feature like that, I wouldn't be able to make calls.
Re: Nokia has as many people for smartphone software as Apple does for all products
#19No matter what you say about Nokia, I love them. Here is why: - Easy designs - Affordable phones - user replaceable batteries - Cheap and fits in with my upgrade cycles - the N900.
The N900 certainly wasn't cheap. In fact, the fact that I'd have to shell out another few hundred for a replacement smartphone is the only reason I haven't thrown it against a wall. I have it overclocked, and it's still dog slow. :(
Do you have the latest Maemo version? It made it a lot faster.
Re: Nokia has as many people for smartphone software as Apple does for all products
#20In my mind, this proves how important it is to hire people that can hit the high notes The Creative Zen team could spend years refining their ugly iPod knockoffs and never produce as beautiful, satisfying, and elegant a player as the Apple iPod. And they're not going to make a dent in Apple's market share because the magical design talent is just not there. They don't have it. The mediocre talent just never hits the…
Thanks for the link, great article. Ripe with memorable quotes.